FACTS which contradict what is taught in the universities and which even run counter to the assumptions made by critics of misandry.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Martha Rendell, Australian Serial Killer Step-Mother - 1909

Wikipedia: Rendell
brutally abused Morris' children, once beating Annie so brutally that she could
not walk. Arresting officer Inspector Harry Mann said "she delighted in
seeing her victims writhe in agony, and from it derived sexual
satisfaction."

FULL TEXT: Fremantle, October 6. – Four petitions to the Executive
and a strong appeal to the Assembly for a commutation of her sentence having
failed, Martha Rendell was executed to-day for poisoning the Morris children.
Death was instantaneous.

PERTH, October 7. – The woman Rendell died protesting her
innocence.

The trial of Martha Rendell and Thomas Nicholls Morris, who
were accused of having poisoned with spirits of salt Arthur Morris, the male
prisoner’s son, was concluded at Perth on September 14.

Morris and Rendell had been living together two or three years,
Morris being separated from his wife, whose children remained with the father,
Rendell calling herself their mother. Three children died successively from a
disease which the medical men could not identify, though they gave death
certificates. One symptom was a peculiar membrane appearing in parts of the
throat. Nearly a year after the death of Arthur Morris, his brother George ran
away from his father to his mother, and when found by the police said, “I would
not stay to be poisoned like the rest.” The bodies of the three children were
exhumed, but no sign of spirits of salt could be detected, though appearances
were compatible with death from an irritant. Spirits of salt were frequently
purchased by Rendell. The boy George swore that he saw Rendell pour spirits of
salt, and take it into Arthur’s room. He heard the latter screaming soon after,
but no direct evidence was given that the spirit had been applied to his
throat.

Mr. Justice MacMillan (acting Chief Justice) said it would
not be denied that there was a strong suspicion, but the jury should be morally
certain, and not strongly suspicious. It was the first case in which spirits of
salt had been alleged to be used for murder. He never had had a case which had
caused him so much difficulty.

The jury, after four hours’ retirement, found Mrs. Rendell
guilty of murder, and Morris not guilty.

The death sentence was passed on Rendell, and Morris was
discharged.

At the coroner’s inquest previously the jury held that
Rendell was guilty of murder, and Morris an accomplice.

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): As the
child in bed writhed in agony, the woman sat in the rocking chair and rocked,
to and fro. Occasionally her body stiffened when an agonising cry for help
burst from that little tortured throat. No, this was not a mother suffering
desperately in sympathy with her pain-wracked child. It was a woman, a sadistic
murderess,
experiencing the strange, inhuman pleasure that suffering brings to those whose
distorted minds demand the satisfaction of inflicting pain on others.

Strange and horrifying though it may
appear, this twist otmind, this denial of the altruistic urge, is not
uncommon. Rather is it expression of a tendency that lies deep down in the minds of us all.

Who has not wondered at the spectacle
of a child
tormenting an insect, bird or animal with the unthinking brutality of the very young?

Who has not asked what it is that
causes the bully to delight in his fists, the flagellator in his whip?

These are expressions of the sadistic urge in man.

But in Martha Rendall this tendency,
which is the basis of all normal aggressiveness, had become distorted, through some
strange process of the mind, intoa mania.

She was capable of passion, this childless
woman, but her twisted, perverted mind had not, and could not, ever have known
what it is tolove.

Martha Rendall was a mystery woman.

In April, 1909, something happened
which caused investigations to begin.

Nothing was known of her parents, her childhood,
or of her early
life, although she was said to havebeen born in
South Australia.Her police history, as I learned
it, began when Thomas Morris left his wife in Subiaco and set up house with
Martha Rendall.

Within two years three of Thomas Morris children
died.

The illness of each child extended over a
lengthy period, and was watched by many of the leading members of the medical profession. Only one doctor suspected foul
play.He, like the others, could not
find a cause for the condition of the three children during their illness, but eventually he
thought it resembled metallic poisoning in some form, but this was not till
after the death of the third child, Arthur.

Influenced by other members of his profession, this doctor
did not report his suspicions to the authorities, and the matter was allowed to
remain.

In April, 1909, however, something
happened which caused investigations to begin in this, probably one of the most fantastic in the
history of the
world’scrimes.

For it was then that Thomas Morris
officially reported that his son George had disappeared from his home. The
matter was treated as an ordinary one of a lad running away from home till, on April 17, I received
information that three of the Morris children had died previously under circumstances
which were considered by the neighbors to be suspicious. Some of them feared that George
Morris might have met his death in the same mysterious way.

At this stage the complete
investigation was entrusted to Plain-clothes Constable Lamond andmyself.

We soon located the lad, living with
his mother in Subiaco.

He told us that he had run away from
home because the woman Martha Rendall had attempted to poison him, and,
further, that she had poisoned his two sisters. Olive and Annie, and his
brother Arthur with spirits of salts some two years before.

It was then that our investigations
began in earnest.

We approached the doctors, none of whom could express an
opinion, having no previous similar case to guide them.

We obtained evidence that large
quantities of
spirits of salts
had been purchased during the children’s illnesses, that the purchase ceased
after the death of the last child.

We had the bodies disinterred and
examined, which confirmed that something had caused inflammation of the bowels and rectum.

After interviewing scores of persons, we found a woman
who had lived next door to the Morris family during Arthur Morris’ illness.

She recalled Martha Rendall’sconstant swabbing of the lad’sthroat. She
remembered his agonising cries at such times and his repeated calls for help.

It was then experimentally confirmed
that spirits of
salts applied to the throat had brought about the condition ultimately ending
in the death of
Annie, Olive and Arthur Morris.

While we were engaged in this inquiry
Martha Rendall suddenly exhibited a similar condition in her own throat,
brought about inthe same manner!

•••

No substantial motive forthe crime was discovered except that as the children grew up
they began to resent the woman’s authority over them. They said she had no
right to punish them, not being their mother.

Annie Morris’ fatal illness commenced
immediately after the child told Rendall she would not obey her. Following this
Olive and Arthur sickened and died in turn.

Beyond an infatuation for Thomas
Morris, a relationship which she no doubt felt was threatened by the attitude of his children, Martha
Rendall was apparently devoid of all feeling, and never at any time, either previous to or
during the seven days’ trial in the Supreme Court, did she show the least
concern for her position. So noticeable was this that the judge, in sentencing
her to death she was the only woman who has ever been hanged in W-A said that
if the Crown witnesses had spoken the truth the woman, was a “human monster.”

So here again we can see the strange
working of a
diseased mind in this case of a woman who deliberately tortured children and callously
watched them die.

What explanation can there be of such inhumanity?

•••

But my theory is that the firstapplication of spirits of salts to the child’s throat was a mistake an accident. One of the doctors told us that he
had prescribed a throat paint in the early stages of the first child’s illness.
We also found out that there was a bottle of hydrochloric acid in the house at the time.

As I see it, when the first
accidental application of the acid was followed by the child’s writhing and cries of pain it awakened to Martha
Rendall a strange and perverted sense of pleasure. A mental illness that had lain dormant perhaps all
her life, suddenly broke through the pattern of normal living in this woman’s
mind, and she was helpless in its grip. So to her the spectacle of pain in
those children was one that aroused an insidious yet powerful passion.

Professor Poole, in describing such a
case, says that there may be many people In whose minds a sadistic urge lies
dormant. A sudden accident may cause tnts tendency to flood out an normal
feelings in such a person’s mind, and impel him or her to seek a perverted
sense of pleasure
in destruction.

Remember that Martha Rendall
afterwards commenced to torture herself as she had tortured those little
children!

Remember, too, mat she went calmly –
perhaps gladly – to her own death, which justice demanded of her in
retribution.

[“The Case Of Martha Rendall – A Sadistic
Killer Second in the seriesof Murderers I Have Known, by Harry Mann, ex-Chief of the CIB , Perth, as told to
Max Praed.” The Sunday Times (Perth, W. A., Australia), Aug. 22, 1943, p. 4S]